Honey Pie (Cupcake Club) - By Donna Kauffman Page 0,2

deal with folks, then folks didn’t have to deal with her and her “eccentricities.”

But as life marched onward for everyone else, while she hung out, safely tucked away on the perimeter, watching . . . she’d finally been forced to admit what she’d known all along: no matter how rich or fulfilling a life she’d built for herself out on the fringes, not being around people pretty much sucked.

Otherwise, she’d still be working in her barn out in Middle of Nowhere, Oregon, and not sitting on a hard wooden bench in Georgia, swatting bugs, watching the cupcake ladies . . . and allowing herself to wonder what it would be like to be one of them. To just . . . hang out, to chat, laugh, and share.

It wasn’t hard to imagine how much she’d enjoy it. She wasn’t awkward, socially or otherwise, or even particularly dorky. Sure, she wasn’t a stunner in the looks department, but she didn’t make babies cry, either. Her body might not turn heads, but it was functional and didn’t let her down. She’d always been a fairly confident, self aware, decently sharp-witted person. But being confident and self-assured didn’t automatically equal fitting in.

Not when all she had to do was touch someone to suddenly know all sorts of things about what was going to happen or what had already happened, good or bad, to that person. Unfortunately, the bad often far outweighed the good. Neither the party in question, nor Honey herself particularly wanted her to know about those kinds of things, but once she did know, she couldn’t exactly ignore them. To her, it was sort of like a moral imperative. If you knew bad things were going to happen to someone, you had to warn them. Right? You had to at least give them a chance to change the outcome.

Otherwise, what was the point in having the stupid “gift” in the first place?

To top it off, folks were rarely grateful for her warnings. Like the bad news was somehow her fault. But she couldn’t just sit there and watch the otherwise inevitable thing happen and not say anything. She’d tried that, but couldn’t live with the guilt of not saying anything, and then watching something horrible, even tragic, befall the person. Who could live with that? It left her . . . where, exactly?

“The equivalent of Juniper Hollows’ Fifth Horse of the Apocalypse, forced to hide out in the family barn, that’s where.” She’d spent her time carving from wood and creating from clay whimsical, happy little garden and woodland critters that filled her personal world, as well as the charming and amusing mail-order catalog that had turned a childhood hobby she’d started with her father into her livelihood as an adult. It was easy to pretend everything was fine when she was surrounded by whimsy, cuteness, and the always adorable. Easy to believe she was happy enough and blessed to be doing something she loved.

As long as I don’t get close to anyone. Ever again.

She was happy. She was. In all the limited ways she could be, anyway. She loved her work, enjoyed her customers, and had built a successful, fulfilling, if very secluded life for herself. It was a lot more fun making people happy than sending them running, hiding from the very sight of her. She simply wanted the same things everyone else did—friends, acceptance, a sense of belonging. She’d actually found a way to have that, too. Just . . . at a carefully controlled distance.

With the launch of the new year—the last one before she turned the big three-oh—coupled with the loss of her last remaining family member, and a newly acquired inheritance, Honey had found herself unable to shut out the niggling thoughts and desires she’d tried to talk herself out of.

The real truth was, she wanted what the cupcake ladies had—community, partnership, family, and friends. The up close and personal kind. Watching them, knowing she was finally going to reach for what they had, the desire had become almost a physical ache. God, but she was lonely. Thriving business or no, communicating all day long with people via the phone or e-mail was a far cry from laughing, chatting, and baking in the same kitchen . . . together.

Bea’s letter she’d received from the lawyer after her aunt’s death, along with the packet detailing the rest of her inheritance, had been, in the end, what had dissolved her carefully constructed defenses. Honey held that letter